NDIAN NOTES 
MONOGRAPHS 


Epirep sy F. W. Hopce 


47 


A SERIES OF PUBLICA- 
TIONS RELATING TO THE 
AMERICAN ABORIGINES 


od 


BY 


a 


NEW YORK 
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
HEYE FOUNDATION 


1928 


Tuis series of INDIAN NoTEs AND MoNno- 
GRAPHS is devoted to the publication of the 
results of studies by members of the staff and 
by collaborators of the Museum of the Ameri- 
can Indian, Heye Foundation, and is uniform 
with Hispanic NOTES AND MONOGRAPHS, 
published by the Hispanic Society of 
America, with which organization this 
Museum is in cordial coédperation. 

A List of Publications of the Museum 


will be sent on request. 


MusEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
Heve FouNDATION 


Broapway AT 155TH Sr. 
New Yor« City 


INDIAN NOTES 
AND MONOGRAPHS 


Epitrep By F. W. HopGE 


47 


Pe oening OF PUBLICA- 
21ONS RELATING TO THE 
AMERICAN ABORIGINES 


——— 


Peteeay AND OTHER ARTIFACTS 
FROM CAVES IN BRITISH HONDURAS 
AND GUATEMALA 


BY 


GREGORY MASON 


NEW YORK 
MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 
HEYE FOUNDATION _ 


1928 


ch tes 


POUIERY AND OTHER ARTIFACTS 
FROM CAVES IN BRITISH HONDURAS 
AND GUATEMALA 


BY 
GREGORY MASON 


he 


POTTERY AND OTHER ARTIFACTS 
FROM CAVES IN BRITISH HON- 
DURAS AND GUATEMALA 


By GREGORY MASON 


HE Museum has recently come into possession 
of a collection of artifacts, mostly pottery, 
found in caves in British Honduras and Guate- 

mala by the Mason-Blodgett Expedition, which left 
New York on February 4, 1928, and returned on 
June 19 after making archeological, ethnological, 
and zodlogical collections in Mexico, British Hon- 
duras, and Guatemala. 

The Museum provided the writer with funds for 
the collection of ethnologic materials. The Museum 
of Comparative Zodlogy of Harvard University 
made a substantial contribution toward the expenses 
of Mr. Oliver L. Austin, Jr., the expedition’s natu- 
ralist. The general expenses and the cost of the 
archeological work were met by equal contributions 
from Mr. Thomas H. Blodgett, President of the 
American Chicle Company, Mr. Bartlett Arkell, 
President of the Beechnut Packing Company, and 
myself. Liberal assistance in the form of trans- 
portation and food was given by Mr. Sheldon S. 
Yates, President of the Chicle Development Com- 


A 


6 ARTIFACTS FROM 


pany, who was himself a very able and simpatico 
member of the field party. My warm thanks are 
due Messrs. Blodgett, Arkell, and Yates for their 
generous approval of my wish that the modest 
archeological collection which we were fortunate 
enough to make should go to the Museum of the 
American Indian, Heye Foundation; or rather, 
that half of it go to the Museum. The Government 
of British Honduras retains title to the other half, 
but thanks are due to the Governor and Council of 
the Colonial Government for graciously lending this 
half to the Museum for one year. At the expiration 
of that time it is to be lent to the British Museum 
for an indefinite period. 

I shall not here descant upon what the expedition 
did in the exploration of several surface sites nor in 
the excavation of burial mounds, but shall confine 
myself to a description of the archeology of the 
caves above mentioned. 

One of these caves is fifteen miles up the Rio 
Chocon from its mouth on the Golfete, in the Izabal 
district of Guatemala. This had been looted by 
persons from Livingston some time before our 
arrival, and although I heard of large incensarios 
having been carried away, the only object of note 
which we found, besides coarse sherds of a common 
type, was the vase, since reconstructed, of a tolerably 
thin, almost lead-colored ware, with lateral and 
diagonal incised lines (fig. 1, 6). This has a base 
diameter of 4% inches. 


7 


Peet trish HONDURAS 


‘ul iP 


ysnug 


‘ 


‘ 


(cost ‘Z98t/9T) 
q JO IoJOWIVIP [eseg ‘e[eUIAN}eN ‘JDII}SIP [eqezy ‘UODOYD OY UO 3ACD WOT] aseA ‘q *SeINpUO_ 
‘oAed) Jo ON}sSIq ‘Ofer, onbueg jo ysva Aq 4S¥9YINOS SoyIW ZI 


V oAeD WOT gseA ‘D—] ‘DIY 


8 ARTIFACTS FRO 


The other four caves are in the southern part of 
the Cayo district of British Honduras. Three of 
them, close together and forming what I consider 


Fic. 2.—Vessel from Chikin Ac Tun, ‘‘ Western Cave,” 9 miles west 
of Rio Frio caves, District of Cayo. Height, 5 in. 


one site and have called the ‘‘Rio Frio caves,’ are 
about twelve miles southeast by east of Benque 
Viejo and eleven and a half miles east of the Guate- 
malan border. One of them is traversed by and 


eee hitoH HONDURAS 9 


Fic. 3.—Fragment of a chocolate-pot from Chikin Ak Tun cave, 
9 miles west of Rio Frio. Extreme height of fragment, 4} in. 


10OARTIFACTS FROM 2 


the other two are within a mile of the Rio Frio, 
sometimes called Pinola creek, which has its origin 
in the Great Southern Pine Ridge and flows into 
the Eastern branch of the Old or Belize river above 
El Cayo. They are in old mahogany forest on the 


Fic. 4.—Sherd from Chikin Ak Tun cave, 9 miles west of Rio Frio 
caves, District of Cayo. Length, 53 in. (16/1833) 


edge of a part of the Great Southern Pine Ridge 
called Agustin, which is an abandoned cattle ranch. 
The fourth cave, which seems to have been the 
center of a settlement marked by remains of many 
agricultural terraces, I have called Chikin Ac Tun, 
or ‘‘ Western cave,’’ for no better reason than that 


eee bao HONDURAS if 


it is close to the western boundary of British Hon- 
duras and about nine miles west of the Rio Frio 
group. 

This fourth cave is of the wide-mouthed type, 
the entrance being some sixty feet high and a 
hundred feet wide. It is dry, and large enough to 
have housed 300 to 400 Indians comfortably. 
Potsherds were scattered plentifully throughout the 
cavern, and especially in subdivisions off the rear 
and sides of it. In one of these small chambers we 
found the complete pot illustrated in fig. 2. This is 
5 inches high, 5 inches in diameter through the 
thickest part, and 3% inches at the mouth. It is of 
smooth, fairly thick ware of a sort of mottled tan 
color with a simple black painted geometric design 
faintly visible around the upper half. Other finds 
in this cave were part of a chocolate-pot (fig. 3) and 
two sherds bearing the clearly stamped design 
illustrated on the piece shown in fig. 4. 

The Rio Frio caves, or two of them at least, 
afforded much more voluminous treasure; Cave B, 
which is of the wide-mouthed variety, is the smallest 
of the three in this group, has no water supply, 
and yielded only common rough sherds without 
design. However, some 200 yards away, across a 
little cafion, and higher up the face of the opposite 
hill, is the mouth of the really remarkable cavern 
we have called Cave A. 

The first one sees of Cave A is a gash in the hill 
about ten feet wide and forty feet long under a lip 


12 ARTIFACTS FROM CA. 


of bare limestone. At the right extends a consider- 
able cave with several subdivisions or chambers in 
which sherds were found; but the entrance to the 
main cave is at the left, and steeply downward. 
A wall of large stones had been put across most of 
this entrance by the ancient inhabitants, probably 
both to make the cave easier to defend and to keep 
large stones from rolling into it. 

The first impression one gets of the interior of the 
cavern is of heavy white draperies, deeply folded. 
One keeps descending for some distance, with so 
many natural passages and chambers at each side 
that it is wise the first time to unroll a ball of string 
with one end tied behind at the opening, and to 
put down candle beacons every thirty or forty feet. 

Some two hundred feet northeast of the entrance 
and sixty feet below it one comes to what I have 
called the ‘‘cathedral,” a great round chamber 
under a high dome of limestone. At different levels 
—like second and third stories—other divisions of 
the cave open on one side of this, and from the 
floor of the third story to the roof reaches up a 
massive limestone pillar, perhaps twenty feet high 
and five feet by four in diameter. It seems at first 
to be the work of man, and I examined it several 
times before coming to the fixed conclusion that it 
is not. Its artificial appearance is increased by the 
fact that low down on its face which looks out over 
the ‘“‘cathedral’’ is an opening like a mouth, with 
what appear to be upper and lower teeth. At first 


foeere tb lot HONDURAS. 13 


I thought this was the open mouth of a typical 
Maya stone serpent, but I am convinced that these 
“‘teeth’’ are merely small stalactites and stalagmites, 
although the resemblance to a serpent’s jaws is 
astonishing. Moreover, there were traces of burnt 
copal incense at the bottom of the ‘‘mouth,”’ showing 
that if man did not make it for ceremonial purposes, 
man at least used it that way, and not so very 
long ago. 

The old Indian who had shown this cave to my 
guide, Alfred August (now a small chicle contractor 
of Macaw Bank), some thirty years ago, told him 
that at that time Indians of the same tribe which 
had been inhabiting the cave were living only about 
thirty miles away in the Peten district of Guatemala. 

Going back along the ‘‘third story’’ some eighty 
feet, we came to the verge of a steep precipice, 
about fifty feet high. With the help of ropes we 
managed to descend this to a creek at its base. 
This creek of limpid water averages about five feet 
wide and a foot deep for the distance of some 150 
feet where it is possible to follow it, from where it en- 
ters under low rocks to where it disappears under 
others which blocked our passage. 

When August first told me of this cave, he said 
he had seen ‘‘a lot of pots of different sizes by the 
side of the creek, each pot with a small round hole 
in its bottom.’ This apparent reference to vessels 
which had been “‘killed’’ naturally interested me; 
but alas, we could find no such cache of pottery. 


144 ARTIFACTS FROM Gaya. 


August insisted that we had not found the right 
place, and that the creek must open out into another 
division of the cave somewhere, but we could not 
find it. I believe that we did reach the creek at 
the point where August visited it thirty years ago, 
and that in the meantime some one removed the 
pots. Imbedded in limestone under the flowing 
water I found, however, the saucer of plain sandy 
ware, 2 inches high and 42 inches outside rim 
diameter, shown in fig. 5, a. 


Fic. 5.—Crude vessels from caves 12 miles southeast by east of 
Benque Viejo, District of Cayo. Outer diameter of a, 43 in. (16/1867, 
1868) 


Clambering back up the precipice to the boulder- 
strewn surface of the ‘third story,’”’ we found 
fragments of a polychrome vase, which as recon- 
structed (fig. 1, a) is 53 inches high and slightly 
wider at the bottom than at the top. This vase is 
orange-red in color, with the design outlined in black. 
Above a somewhat badly obliterated painting in 
which Dr. Morley tells me he thinks he sees the 
head of a god, is a band of glyphs encircling the 


Peemntl ist HONDURAS 15 


vessel. This appears to be a repetition of two 
glyphs closely joined—a large one and a small one. 
The small one resembles Ben, one of the Maya day 
signs, and might pass for that. The ware of this 
vessel is thin and smooth, the drawing well executed, 
and on the whole the receptacle is a closer approach 
to the best Maya polychrome pottery than anything 
else in our collection. 

Like three intact vases of similar type which we 
were soon to find in this cave, it might be described 
as Maya polychrome pottery of a somewhat decadent 
period. The first of these three intact vessels was 
found by August while I was absent from the cave, 
and he never succeeded in definitely locating for me 
the niche in which he came upon it. (This is not 
surprising, considering that he remained with us 
only one day and that the rest of us found ourselves 
capable of quite easily becoming ‘‘lost’’ in the 
ramifications of the cavern during the week that 
we searched it.) This vase (fig. 6) is of smooth, 
rather thin red ware, and is 74 inches high and 6 
inches in diameter, being nearly cylindrical. In a 
yellow band 12 inch deep around the top are nine 
red glyphs, no two alike, and none of them de- 
_ cipherable now, if they ever had more than a purely 
decorative significance. 

The other two intact vases of this type were found 
close together on the rocky floor of one of the 
innumerable small natural chambers of a cave, 
or labyrinth of caves. The laborer who found them 


146 ARTIFACTS FROM, Gee ae 


Fic. 6.—Cylindrical polychrome vase from Cave A, Rio Frio group. 
Height, 7} in. 


Poet tor HONDURAS. 17 


declared that each had contained a small quantity 
of “fine, gray ashes,’ which, alas, he carelessly 
threw away before he brought them to me. (This 


Fic. 7.—Cylindrical polychrome vase from Cave A, Rio Frio group. 
Height, 5 in. 

sort of mishap is one of the disadvantages of trying 

to do a great deal of work in a short time; I could 

not keep my eye on each of my five men at once.) 


IS ARTIFACTS PROM Cee 


Of course it would be interesting to know that they 
were funerary urns. They are almost equal in size, 
and are slightly smaller than the vessel described 
in the last paragraph. The old laborer who found 
them called them ‘goblets,’ a word which well 
suits their shape. One is 5% inches high and of 53 
inches diameter (fig. 7); the color is orange. Below 
a black marginal line a black glyph repeated seven- 
teen times encircles the top of the vase; below these, 
in four black circles of three inches diameter, are 
four red glyphs, or red designs which seem to 
suggest the serpent motive. The other vase of this 
pair (fig. 8, 6) was my first choice when I divided 
the collection with Captain Gruning, of the British 
Museum, in behalf of the Colonial Government. 
It is 6 inches high and 5} inches in diameter, of 
orange-yellow ware, three-sixteenths of an inch thick. 
At the top between black borders sixteen red glyphs 
encircle the vase, no glyph being repeated. The 
background on which they lie between the black 
bands is a clear yellow, a lighter tint than the body 
of the vase. Encircling this, half-way up the vessel, 
are six ovals of red, and below them three black 
bands, each an eighth of an inch wide, and a red 
one, a quarter of an inch wide, all somewhat un- 
steadily drawn. 

I have mentioned a barrier wall of stones which 
had been built across the entrance of Cave A. 
Three similar walls, blocking entrance to inner 
subdivisions of the cave, had partially fallen or 


i? 


IN BRITISH HONDURAS 


431PH 


(I88T ‘Z88t/91) “Ur “JO 
‘oABD JO PUsIq ‘OfelA snbueg jo }S¥o Aq }SPaYyNOs SoyIwW ZT 


SOARD OLY CY WOT] spassaA—'s “IY 


20 ARTIFACTS PRO hi 


had been partially torn down to permit ingress of 
visitors who had been ahead of us. Although 
nearly all the many “‘rooms”’ of the cave appeared 


Fic. 9.—Platter from cave 12 miles southeast by east of Benque 
Viejo, District of Cayo. Diameter, 103 in. (16/1879) 


to be natural chambers, some of the passages 
connecting them showed evidence of man’s handi- 
work. Many of these were very low and tortuous, 


Peet HONDURAS. 21 


so that we were obliged to crawl on hands and 
knees. Two of them were too narrow to permit 
my entrance at all. Two of the smallest laborers 
were induced by a fee to enter these, each of which 
led into a series of low-roofed chambers containing 
much pottery, mostly broken. However, we man- 
aged to get nearly all the fragments of three wide, 


Fic. 10.—Bowl from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Extreme diameter, 
7k in. (16/1878) 


shallow dishes of which the one illustrated in fig. 9 
_ is the best in point of decoration. Its inner surface 
is painted in a red, yellow, and black geometric 
design. The diameter is 10% inches. Near it was 
found the rather pleasingly formed plain bowl, 
72 inches in diameter, shown in fig. 10. 

Nearly everywhere in Cave A we encountered 
necks and other pieces of jars which had probably 


22 ARTIFACTS PROG = 


been used to hold water and grain. They varied 
from 8 to 23 inches in height, the diameter usually 
nearly equaling the height and in a few cases 
exceeding it. They were of a thick, coarse, dark- | 
grayish ware, unpainted, but often bore encircling | 
punctate designs, sometimes wavy as in fig. 11. 
The rim diameter of this specimen is 7¢ inches. 
Some bear eyelets under the neck to facilitate 


EemeneRo es 


Fic. 11.—Sherd of a jar from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Diameter of 
rim, 7 in. (16/1841) 


carrying with a cord like the example seen in fig. 12, 
an olla 13 inches high. There seems to be no 
standardized type of lip and neck. Fig. 13 shows 
a jar whose neck has an outside diameter, across 
the lips, of only 57% inches, and fig. 27, 6, shows a 
similar vessel with a measurement of 4,% inches, 
while the example in fig. 14 has a rim diameter of 
175 inches. Other specimens are seen in figs. 15 


eee olor HONDURAS 23 


and 16. None of these ollas have legs, but some of 
them have circular bases like that seen in fig. 17. 


fic. 12.—Symmetrical jar from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Height, 
137 in. (16/1884) 


Only one of these large jars was encountered 
entirely intact, and that lay in a small room at the 
end of one of the very narrow burrows above 
mentioned. My two smallest laborers had quite a 
task rolling it out ahead of them without breaking it. 


24ARTIFACTS ¥ ROM 


There is no doubt that some of these tight passages 
have been made smaller by the accumulation of 
water-deposited earth on their floors. Yet I can 
account for the presence of this large olla in its 


Fic. 13.—Part of vessel from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Outer diameter 
of rim, 5j,in. (16/1850) 


remote chamber only by the probability that some 
former opening, giving easier access to the spot 
where we found it, has been blocked by a fall of 
limestone. : 

Five other large ollas, unhurt save for small 


vee on HONDURAS 25 


breaks, I cached in the bush, having insufficient 
boxes and mules to carry them to Cayo with me. 
Later from Belize I telegraphed my Cayo foreman 


Fic. 14.—Part of vessel from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Outer diameter 
of rim, 17; in. (16/1848) 


to get them. Although he was quite familiar with 
their proportions, he took with him only gasoline 
cases of inadequate size; whereupon he resorted 
to the expedient of cutting the jars into halves with 


26 ARTIFACTS FROM 


a machete! To make matters worse, the halves 
were much further broken in shipment to Belize. 


Fic. 15.—Jar from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Height, 9 in. 
(16/1883) 


An interesting feature of Cave C, which is less 
than a mile from Cave A, is that we found in it no 
olla or piece of olla like those which were so common 
in Cave A—so common indeed that they suggest a 
long and crowded human occupancy of that rocky 


Wemeoestaott HONDURAS 27 


retreat. The nearest thing to it from Cave C is 
illustrated in fig. 18, c—e, three sherds shown below 
two fragments of characteristic jar necks (a, b) from 


Fic. 16.—Incomplete jar from Cave A, Rio Frio group. Extreme 
diameter, 7; in. (16/1851) 


Cave A. The specimen shown in a has the solid, 
incised wavy line which we frequently found in both 
single and double form on sherds from Cave C (fig. 
18, c-e). The punctate decoration was much more 
common on Cave A pottery, however. Further- 


92 ARTIFACTS FROM CAVES 


more, the Cave C sherds are distinctly lighter 
in color. 

Cave C, open wide and high at each end, is 
illuminated by daylight throughout the nearly four 


Fic. 17.—Jar from Cave A, Eseries group. Diameter of base, 4 in. 
ent te 16, 


hundred yards of its length. It has an air of well- 
proportioned spaciousness, suggesting a huge Gothic 
cathedral. We discovered it in following upstream 
the tumbling little Rio Frio, in the cafion of which 
it is found. 


a ee eee See eT 


PXBRIPISH HONDURAS 29 


‘p JO y Bua] 


‘OARD JO PSIG 


(C€8T ‘ZEST/9T) “ur ze 
‘Oat oenbueg jo ysvo Aq }seoy jos Seylut_Z] SeAVD WOIF SplaysS—gT ‘D1 


30 ARTIFACTS FROM Cae 


From where we entered the cave, that is, at its 
downstream opening, it extends a little east of north, 
or about twenty degrees. In the middle the great 
natural tunnel swings to sixty degrees. We entered 
on the southeasterly side of the river, the right 
bank as one goes upstream, under a yawning lip of 
bare limestone 150 feet above. The ground rises 
sharply from the creek and the cave widens to about 
250 feet just inside this entrance, leaving consider- 
able space on each side above highwater mark 
which human beings might occupy. This is wides 
on the southeasterly side than on the northwesterly, 
and here were found most of the evidences of 
former human occupancy which we _ ultimately 
discovered. 

At the very entrance on this side is a big rock 
with barely room between it and the wall of the 
cave for a man to pass to reach a hole in the wall. 
This opening is waist-high above the floor of the 
cave, and I could not crawl into it until I had 
broken off some sharp four-inch stalactites which 
threatened to rake the back of any one attempting 
to crawl the nine and a half feet that this apparently 
natural passage extends before it opens into a 
cavity about thirty feet long and from three to ten 
feet wide, but averaging only four and a half feet 
high. To reach the floor of this little cavern one 
drops down from the floor of the passage about the 
distance that one finds it necessary to raise oneself 
to get into the passage at its outer end. Moreover, 


Perot oH HONDURAS: 31 


‘OZIS JORXY 


dnoi3 Oy Ory ‘Dd asAe_ UI quo} wor; snid-1ee s}Iape(— 6] 


‘OL 


32 ARTIFACTS FROM (aya 


the opening from the passage into this chamber was 
too small for all of us except ‘‘ Chinda,”’ a diminutive 
Nicaraguan of enviable energy and courage. 

After worming through this hole, ‘‘Chinda”’ 
scratched about on the dirt floor of the chamber a 
minute and then passed out to me the jadeite 
ear-plug shown in fig. 19. Its greatest diameter is 
24 inches, and it is pierced on opposite sides of the 
narrow collar just beneath the flaring lip. “‘Chinda” 
searched vainly for its mate, but he soon found the 
smaller flat jadeite ear-plug, with outside diameter 
of 14 inch and inside diameter of 7% inch, shown 
in fig. 20, c. He also found the pendant, made of a 
stone with which I am unfamiliar, illustrated in the 
same figure (e); it is 2} inches long. “Chinda’”’ 
also came upon a slightly smaller pendant of dark 
jadeite, and many small fragments of human bones, 
very far gone in disintegration. 

I have little doubt that this chamber was used as 
a tomb. Even though the Maya were a small 
people, the task of pushing a corpse along that 
narrow passage and through the narrower inner 
orifice could not have been easy. 

Before he finished his search in this place, ‘‘ Chin- 
da’’ discovered in the rather loose dirt of the floor, 
at depths of from two to six inches, six dishes of 
thick unpainted ware and of considerable similarity 
to one another in shape, but varying from 13 to 23 
inches high, with a top diameter of from 4 to 73 
inches and a bottom diameter of from 3 to 43 


Meet HONDURAS 33 


‘azIs pexy ‘*dno1s Oy ONT ‘dD saed wioIy sqalqg—Oz ‘DIY 


34 ARTIFACTS FROM CAVES 


inches, although in three of them the bottoms were 
roughly rounded and one of these had had thick 
tripod legs. Except that they have flaring lips, 
these vessels look not unlike the dishes in which 
our mothers baked cup custards. One is distinctly 
narrower than the others, and in this the lips flare 


Fic. 21.—Vessels from caves 12 miles southeast by east of Benque 
Viejo, District of Cayo. Diameter of a,43in. (16/1875, 1876) 


less (fig. 21, b). This example resembles the vessel 
shown in fig. 22, a, found in Cave A. The broader 
type is exemplified by the vessel illustrated in fig. 
23, a, and by the one in fig. 21, a. The piece 
illustrated in fig. 23, b, was found three inches deep 
in loose sand under a great boulder projecting from ~ 
the side of the cave, a spot where other artifacts to 
be described were found also. 

A few feet farther into the cave from the entrance 
to the tomb just described, I found a structure 
which I have called an altar, although I am uncertain 
as to its use. This was thirty feet long, nine feet 


Peer tis HONDURAS: 35 


wide, and four feet high, built out from the perpen- 
dicular wall of the cave and constructed of loose 
stones without mortar. Some of the stones at the 
top were no larger than a double fist, while many 


Fic. 22.—Objects from caves 12 miles southeast by east of Benque 
Viejo. Length of b, 33 in. (16/1834, 1835) 


at the bottom were two feet in diameter. This 
altar, if such it was, ends against the great hanging 
boulder mentioned. Under this rock a space seven 
by ten feet has a head clearance varying from two 
to three feet. Debouching into this space is a small 
twisting tunnel which passed through the base of 
the altar and was best entered from a perpendicular 


36 ARTIFACTS FROM CAs 


shaft three feet from the farther end of the altar— 
a round shaft of just sufficient diameter to admit a 
man. Likewise the little tunnel was barely high 
enough and wide enough to permit me to crawl 
through it. 

On top of the altar we found a shallow saucer 
much like the one we had found in the bed of the 
creek in Cave A. At the junction of the altar with 


Fic. 23.—Vessels from cave 12 miles southeast by east of Benque 
Viejo, District of Cayo. Outer diameter of a, 5} in. (16/1873, 1874) 


the boulder was a considerable deposit of ashes. 
We took the altar down, and scattered under the 
end of it against the boulder, as well as through 
the ashes which had been outside of the altar, we 
found small broken pieces of worked jadeite, four 
jadeite beads (fig. 20, a) and a jadeite button (0). 
At least, this last artifact is much like a button on 
one side, with a depression in the center which is 
pierced, but the opposite side is pierced from the 
flat surface by two diagonal holes which emerge at 
the rim, reminding one of a Japanese netsuke. 


Pee bol HONDURAS 37 


ur Fg ‘ysoBIe] OY} JO yWSUeT ‘dnois ony ony *D xAeD WO} SplsayS—Pe “SIA 


38 ARTIFACTS FROM CAVES 


Along the wall of the cave, between the altar and 
the mouth of the entrance to the tomb, a distance 
of about thirty feet, one could tread nowhere without 
stepping on sherds. They were mixed with the 
loose sand to a depth of upward of two feet. The 


Fic. 25.—Fragments of vessels from Cave C, Rio Frio group. Ex- 
treme diameter of lower specimen, 83; in. (16/1823) 


majority are rough common sherds, but many bear 
incised designs and not a few are decorated with 
patterns in colors, usually red, black, and yellow, 
or red, black, and orange. Fig. 24 shows some 
examples, both of incised and polychrome sherds. 
Figs. 25 and 26 illustrate the inner and the outer 


Pee tbon HONDURAS 39 


surface of two pieces from different vessels with 
interesting polychrome motives. Fig. 27, a, showing 
a rather crude black geometric design in red, was 
found in the same spot, as was a somewhat better 
piece illustrated in fig. 8, a. 


Fic. 26.—Outer sides of the fragments of the vessels shown in fig. 25 


Twenty-eight inches beneath the floor of the cave, 
beside the big boulder already mentioned as standing 
just inside the downstream entrance to the cavern, 
we found a human skull in pieces, and a few frag- 
ments of the rest of the skeleton. There was no 


40 ARTIFACTS FROM Cay 


suggestion of a grave, much less of such well-made 
graves of limestone slabs as I had found in burial 
mounds at San Felipe, two miles southwest of Cayo. 

Between the altar and the steep slope down to 
the river was a terrace, partly artificial, averaging 
twenty feet wide. This was littered with sherds 
of many kinds, and may have been a sort of kitchen- 
midden. From four to eight inches below the 


onic 
Te 


Fic. 27.—Parts of vessels from Rio Frio caves. Outer diameter of 
rim of b, 433 in. (16/1860, 1852) 


surface were quantities of the shells of freshwater 
snails. The one polychrome sherd and the three 
sherds with embellishments in high relief, shown 
in fig. 28, were found here, as were the specimen 
illustrated in fig. 22, b, which is 32 inches long and 
may bea pottery coil, and a flint core, 53°s inches in 
length (fig. 29, a). 

On the surface of this terrace I found a limestone 
ball, 2% inches in diameter, which may have been a 


Pee RITISH HONDURAS! 41 


(O€8T ‘FZ8T/9T) 


‘ul &¢ ‘JSaBIL] ay} JO YIBUNT 


‘Oly ONY 


2 aavg wor splaysS—*gz “OTA 


42 ARTIFACTS PROM Ga 


(OL8T ‘6981/9T) 


‘ul 92¢ ‘p Jo yBUaT «*dnoss O11 ONY ‘OD eaeD Woy spo2{qo sU0IG—"6Z “SIT 


Peeper tisH HONDURAS 43 


sling-stone (fig. 29, c), and a ball about three times 
as large, of a darker stone of about an equal degree 
of hardness, which makes it seem rather soft for a 
hammerstone (fig. 29, b). The best things from 
the surface of this terrace, however, were several 


Fic. 30.—Incensario from cave of the Rio Frio group. Height, 97 in. 
(16/1855) 


large fragments of two incensarios of the studded, 
reddish sandy ware type. The one shown restored 
in fig. 30 is 92 inches high, and the knobs or nipples 
are 14 inches long. In the other one they are 1} 
inches. Similar incensarios were found during the 


44 ARTIFACTS FROM CAVES 


same season by Mr. J. Eric Thompson of the Field 
Museum, at a site roughly fifteen miles south by 
west of the Rio Frio caves. 

There are many small chambers and pockets in 
the sides of Cave C in addition to the tomb already 
described. In several of these, on each side of the 
river, we found sherds, betokening early human 
existence in these lofty pockets (one was under the 
very roof of the cave) and suggesting comparisons 
with the cliff-dwellings of our Southwest. 

Half a dozen complete saucers of a rough un- 
decorated sandy ware (like the one shown in fig. 5, d) 
were found in a small chamber thirty feet above 
the main floor and forty feet toward the center of 
the cave from the altar. This chamber and the 
others like it would have made an excellent hiding- 
place in time of war. These saucers are 2 inches 
high and 3% inches in outside diameter. 

On the northwest side of Cave C, that is, the side 
opposite the tomb and altar, the largest space 
suitable for human use is toward the northeastern 
or upstream entrance to the cavern. Here are 
terraces of hard-packed sand, which the prevailing 
easterly wind was sifting into the cave even while 
we were there. Excavation through several feet of 
drifted dust and sand here might yield something, 
but I believe that probably such artifacts as may 
yet be found in this part of the cave will be dis- 
covered in pockets along the side, for man was 
probably as much averse to mild but frequent 
sandstorms in those days as he is today. 


Pome et bo HONDURAS 45 


I do not like to attempt hazardous estimates as 
to the age of the pieces in this collection, but rather 
doubt if any of them are extremely early. Some of 
them might perhaps be called ‘‘decadent Maya 
First Empire polychrome,” but that does not help 
us a great deal. The significant thing is that 
several pieces seem to represent interesting differ- 
ences from pottery previously found in Central 
America. Archeologists have been inclined to re- 
gard British Honduras as a peripheral area in which 
the inferior cultures of collateral tribes were more 
or less influenced by contact with the “‘classical”’ 
Maya. However this may be, it seems to the writer 
that the results attained by the several expeditions 
which have labored in British Honduras during the 
last decade or so indicate that the pursuit of more 
intensive work in that colony will be amply repaid. 


